Day 13 - California Adventure

He Said:Another long, successful day in the books. Headed over to Cars today. I thought getting there at 7:45 would let me enter the park when it opened at 8 and get the Fastpass tickets for Cars. Apparently they go fast and it's easily an 85 minute wait. Turns out, the park gates were already open even though the park wasn't, and there was already a line easily 200 deep. All in all it didn't turn out too bad; we got ticket for 10:10. Between then we went on Soaring Over California. Ryan was unsure, but he did it twice and enjoyed it. It is pretty cool. Cars too, when the race starts. We knocked off most of California, back to the hotel for a nap and pool, then it was back for Ariel's Grotto dinner with reserved World of Colour section. The food was good, but not THAT good, in my opinion. The Toy Story Midway also has shooting, which Shannon liked. She kicked my butt this time out. World of Colour was amazing, perhaps even more so than Fantasmic. I suppose at the end of the day it's just movies on water, but still - they do it well. I held Mara the whole time, so she could see. Man she's getting big. One more day to go.
She Said: Too bad there's so many people willing to wait more than half an hour (even as much as 90 minutes) for a 2 minute ride. If we all had a maximum tolerance of 30 minutes (or maybe less, since I'm anyway hoping) then we would all benefit. Fast passes are great, but Brad had to wait 45 minutes in line to get it. Weird. So this morning we're going to get there even earlier so Brad can get the fast pass and the rest of us can just head straight for the ride. Then we get to go twice for our 45 minute minimum waiting. It really is one of the best rides they have. The race part is just the right amount of speed and dips and turns to be thrilling but not too much to be scary for the little ones. Soarin' over California is very well done. I think Fantasmic is better than World of Colour because of the combination of water effect, fire and acrobatics.
While Brad was in line this morning. The kids and I tried the Flying Tires ride. Sooooooo disappointing. They need to remove it. It's meant to be a bumper car idea but the cars are hovercrafts that look like tires. The cast member (what they call Disneyland staff) had to yell over music and engine noises to explain to 10 people at a time what the instructions were. Even at that, you couldn't hear her unless she was facing you directly. The idea is that you just lean your body to make the craft move. Mara was in a tire by herself and never heard that instruction so she just sat there and waited for something to happen. Finally someone ran into her and that started her moving. There were so many of us on the "track" that I couldn't move mine and Ryan's craft very far or fast to help her. It's just not sensitive enough to your movements to be all that effective and when you bump into someone it's a very soft bump so even that isn't fun. It just doesn't work and I feel bad for the poor girl who had to yell at people all day.
This morning we're doing shopping also, we already don't have enough room in our suitcases to bring home what we bought last week, so our Disney souvenirs will be small. There's a cool iPhone case I like and my current one is broken. I'm hoping to talk the girls into a watch or charm bracelet. The boys probably won't get anything. Maybe a suitcase or backpack to put more stuff in. Ha.